I made this music player at MyFlashFetish.com.
What can I say. I am a product of the ’70’s and as such, I am subject to the ridicule associated with liking music such as Firefall, America and Fleetwood Mac. The type of music some argue you’d have to pick the crust off of before listening to.
But I love it. All of it.
I remember hanging out in my dad’s shop, while he worked on his hovercraft, sitting on a rickety old stool covered with a thick layer of sawdust.
Watching dad work the tools like a second nature.
The soft melody of Stevie Nicks wafting through the cold air. Echoing straight through my veins.
And it didn’t end there. As I grew older, I discovered that I couldn’t get enough of this stuff. I stole every 45 from my dad’s collection that I could get my hands on.
Every scratch, every pop. Each and every one etched in my brain. It’s exact location in the song logged into my memory bank.
I had my own record player in my room at age 12 and it became my personal shrine where I could bring all of my worries and wishes and just let them all go in the black, spinning vinyl.
The teacher that was mean to me. The boy who got away. Things I swore, at the time, would break my heart into a thousand little pieces but now, I can appreciate how silly they actually were. Just childish memories now.
One of my favorite songs that brings me back in an instant is by Fleetwood Mac.
And it just makes sense. It sums it all up in a song.
It made perfect sense when I was 12 and it still does today.
Even now, it brings a calm and comfort like nothing else. The closest may be of when I was 8 years old. Every other Sunday, I would spread myself out on the livingroom floor and help my mother bag up her Avon orders. I can still smell the scent of fresh cardboard packaging and paper bags. And I can still hear her Jon Secada album pulsing through the stereo.
There are moments like these, I think, in everyone’s lives, that bring us back down to the ground.
We may be somewhere else in life, strung high atop a world that seems unbearable at times.
But all we have to do is look back to that one place and time when everything made sense, when all was well and nothing else mattered but our happiness in that one moment.
What are those moments for you?
5 responses to “I’m not a child anymore…”
I wasn’t familiar with this Stevie Nicks song- it’s really nice!
I can still remember the music they played at my seventh grade class dance.
isn’t it amazing what strong connection you can make through music? it can take you back to those moments when like you said everything made sense. i still remember clearly when one of my aunts took one my sisters and to a flea market and my sister bought a cassette player with headphones along with a copy of madonna’s true blue album. it was a long trip back home so my sister and i listened to that tape over and over in the car. even though my sister didn’t speak english, and probably didn’t understand what madonna was singing about, i still remember that day very vividly because i feel like we both bonded in some magical way. i was also twelve at that time.
Every Labor Day I would play the Beach Boys Endless Summer and lament the passing of another summer.
This makes me think of my lost childhood memories! Thanks so much for sharing!
I too have fond memories of the hovercraft-building weeks spent in and out of the garage, taking cups of hot coffee or tea to your Dad as he worked into the wee hours perfecting his craft. Now it’s carving fish or hawks or owls for hours on end. It would be wonderful to be artistic and talented so I could have a hobby like that. The Fleetwood Mac makes me ache with nostalgia. I was so young! Time flies when you’re (getting older) having fun.